This is also an argument against going to movies, buying coffee, owning a car, or having a child. In fact, this is an argument against doing anything beyond living at the absolute minimum threshold of life, while donating the rest of your income to charity.
How can you say it’s moral to value your own comfort as being worth more than 100-1000 other humans? They just did worse at the birth lottery, right?
It’s not really an argument against those other things, although I do indeed try to avoid some luxuries, or to match the amount I spend on them with a donation to an effective aid organization.
What I think you’ve missed is that many of the items you mention are essential for me to continue having and being motivated in a job that pays me well—well enough to make donations to aid organizations that accomplish far more than I could if I just took a plane to a place of extreme poverty and attempted to help using my own skills directly.
If there’s a better way to help alleviate poverty than donating a percentage of my developed-world salary to effective charities every year, I haven’t found it yet.
Ah, I see. So when you spend money on yourself, it’s just to motivate yourself for more charitable labor. But when those weird cryonauts spend money on themselves, they’re being selfish!
Ah, I see. So when you spend money on yourself, it’s just to motivate yourself for more charitable labor. But when those weird cryonauts spend money on themselves, they’re being selfish!
No, I’m arguing that it would be selfish for me to spend money on myself, if that money was on cryonics, where selfishness is defined as (a) spending an amount of money that could relieve a great amount of suffering, (b) on something that doesn’t relate to retaining my ability to get a paycheck.
One weakness in this argument is that there could be a person who is so fearful of death that they can’t live effectively without the comfort that signing up for cryonics gives them. In that circumstance, I couldn’t use this criticism.
Cryonics is comparable to CPR or other emergency medical care, in that it gives you extra life after you might otherwise die. Of course it’s selfish, in the sense that you’re taking care of yourself first, to spend money on your medical care, but cryonics does relate to your ability to get a paycheck (after your revival).
To be consistent, are you reducing your medical expenses in other ways?
Cryonics is comparable to CPR or other emergency medical care
.. at a probability of (for the sake of argument) one in a million.
Do I participate in other examples of medical care that might save my life with probability one in a million (even if they don’t cost any money)? No, not that I can think of.
That’s true. I didn’t spend my own money on them (I grew up in the UK), and they didn’t cost very much in comparison, but I agree that it’s a good example of a medical long shot.
Yep, the cost and especially the administrative hassles are, in comparison to the probability considerations, closer to the true reason I (for instance) am not signed up yet, in spite of seeing it as my best shot of insuring long life.
To be fair, vaccination is also a long shot in terms of frequency, but definitely proven to work with close to certainty on any given patient. Cryonics is a long shot intrisically.
But it might not be if more was invested in researching it, and more might be invested if cryonics was already used on a precautionary basis in situations where it would also save money (e.g. death row inmates and terminal patients) and risk nothing of significance (since no better outcome than death can be expected).
In that sense it seems obviously rational to advocate cryonics as a method of assisted suicide, and only the “weirdness factor”, religious-moralistic hangups and legislative inertia can explain the reluctance to adopt it more broadly.
This is also an argument against going to movies, buying coffee, owning a car, or having a child. In fact, this is an argument against doing anything beyond living at the absolute minimum threshold of life, while donating the rest of your income to charity.
How can you say it’s moral to value your own comfort as being worth more than 100-1000 other humans? They just did worse at the birth lottery, right?
It’s not really an argument against those other things, although I do indeed try to avoid some luxuries, or to match the amount I spend on them with a donation to an effective aid organization.
What I think you’ve missed is that many of the items you mention are essential for me to continue having and being motivated in a job that pays me well—well enough to make donations to aid organizations that accomplish far more than I could if I just took a plane to a place of extreme poverty and attempted to help using my own skills directly.
If there’s a better way to help alleviate poverty than donating a percentage of my developed-world salary to effective charities every year, I haven’t found it yet.
Ah, I see. So when you spend money on yourself, it’s just to motivate yourself for more charitable labor. But when those weird cryonauts spend money on themselves, they’re being selfish!
How wonderful to be you.
No, I’m arguing that it would be selfish for me to spend money on myself, if that money was on cryonics, where selfishness is defined as (a) spending an amount of money that could relieve a great amount of suffering, (b) on something that doesn’t relate to retaining my ability to get a paycheck.
One weakness in this argument is that there could be a person who is so fearful of death that they can’t live effectively without the comfort that signing up for cryonics gives them. In that circumstance, I couldn’t use this criticism.
Cryonics is comparable to CPR or other emergency medical care, in that it gives you extra life after you might otherwise die. Of course it’s selfish, in the sense that you’re taking care of yourself first, to spend money on your medical care, but cryonics does relate to your ability to get a paycheck (after your revival).
To be consistent, are you reducing your medical expenses in other ways?
.. at a probability of (for the sake of argument) one in a million.
Do I participate in other examples of medical care that might save my life with probability one in a million (even if they don’t cost any money)? No, not that I can think of.
Did you ever get any vaccination shots? Some of these are for diseases that have become quite rare.
That’s true. I didn’t spend my own money on them (I grew up in the UK), and they didn’t cost very much in comparison, but I agree that it’s a good example of a medical long shot.
Yep, the cost and especially the administrative hassles are, in comparison to the probability considerations, closer to the true reason I (for instance) am not signed up yet, in spite of seeing it as my best shot of insuring long life.
To be fair, vaccination is also a long shot in terms of frequency, but definitely proven to work with close to certainty on any given patient. Cryonics is a long shot intrisically.
But it might not be if more was invested in researching it, and more might be invested if cryonics was already used on a precautionary basis in situations where it would also save money (e.g. death row inmates and terminal patients) and risk nothing of significance (since no better outcome than death can be expected).
In that sense it seems obviously rational to advocate cryonics as a method of assisted suicide, and only the “weirdness factor”, religious-moralistic hangups and legislative inertia can explain the reluctance to adopt it more broadly.